


Homeward

by BluBooThalassophile



Series: The Many Alternative Lives of JayRae [9]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Ninjas, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 12:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17386184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluBooThalassophile/pseuds/BluBooThalassophile
Summary: To have a name is to have a home, she's determined to restore his to him, even if it means crossing the world for her slave.





	1. Unnamed, Not Nameless

He had seen many things since coming to this land, he’d been a prisoner, he’d been a warrior, he’d been a champion, an outcast, a ronin, an outsider, an outlaw, and he’d been a savior. He’d been lost, and he’d been found. He’d found the peace in he quiet honor of this life, the code here.

Which was why he wasn’t fighting his death as he sat beneath the tree and closed his eye, the wound was bad, and deep. Fatal.

And for the first time Jason could have sworn he was seeing an angel, which despite seeing everything and having been everything here, had him hallucinating of a legend from home. The black wings were thick, heavy like a raven’s, the form was lithe, the mask red, and ugly face as it walked forward. He chuckled, feeling the blood on his lips as he watched the form.

“Now I’m seeing angels,” he mused dryly.

The form crouched over him and he was too tired to fight the form as a slight hand moved his hands off his wound and moved the clothing he was wearing. He hissed at the sting and pull on his skin.

“Leave it,” he whispered to the angel.

Suddenly the big mask was pulled off and he found himself staring into the eyes of a tengu woman. Her eyes were dark, serious, her hair pulled back from her face. The markings on her face were red, and the chakra point on her brow, the red slashes over her cheeks, and her lips were full. The face was serine and peaceful, bewitching.

“Shh,” she cooed as she traced his face and he closed his eyes, feeling at peace after years of being torn asunder by war and emotions and he trusted her.

* * *

 

She was named Rie, meaning ‘true blessing’, he thought it fitting as he watched her. She was so quiet, dignified, even when she would pull on her mask and fly from the refuge she had provided him with. She was a very beautiful creature, unlike anything he had ever witnessed.

She was so levelly calm about hiding him.

“What is your name?” she asked one day as she fed him broth, the first words she had spoken to him in the weeks since she had rescued him.

“Nanashi,” he answered.

“That is…”

“What I am called,” he said levelly as he stared at her. His name was not something he chose to remember as it reminded him of a different life, of a different person, of someone who he had once been.

She bowed her head slightly at this and he just looked away. She changed his bandages and left him, he picked up a discarded feather, a raven’s feather he thought and twirled it a bit before he shut his eyes.

* * *

 

The first day he was well enough to leave the room she had him hidden away in her compound. He slid a door open to some gardens, the early spring’s rain falling and the snow melting. She was sitting there fixing her wing’s feathers. He sat beside her, dark slitted eyes looked at him and he refused to look at her.

He found peace in the silence and in the rain as he sat in the cold with her. She continued her task of preening. He had never witnessed a creature as stunning as her.

He remembered his brothers, and he wondered if they missed him, or if they even cared he was no longer home.

Rie tensed and he looked up as she flipped her wings back and stood. She motioned for him to stay as she left. He heard her greet someone quietly and he stretched out on the porch as he closed his eyes.

He woke with a heavy blanket draped over him.

* * *

 

The day he was discovered with Rie in the gardens by other tengu he was forced into a fight. He didn’t know what was happening, he was still only partially healed.

The moment he had a sword and there was a tengu rushing him, metal clanged and he fought hard, ignoring the pain of his wounds as he struggled to keep from falling back. He soon got the uperhand in the fight as he shoved the tengu up, it came at him, he spun once as he slammed his sword up into his attacker’s chest. The flock gasped and the tengu fell to the ground dead. He held dripped with blood, and he stared up at Rie, she nodded slowly.

* * *

 

Her hair was loose the day they were walking through the forest.

“Nanashi,” she spoke softly.

“Rie,” he replied.

“What is… Ree-chi-ar?” she said.

He blinked at herquestion.

“Where did you hear that?”

“You cried out in your sleep,” she answered.

“Richard,” he said softly. “I had brothers,” he informed her.

“Oh…” she blinked.

“I… I come from a land, far, far away from here,” he mused.

“I have figured that out, No Name,” she said softly.

“I have a name,” he assured her.

“Nanashi?” she mused.

“Jason,” he answered. It felt foreign on his tongue, and so long forgotten since he hadn’t used it since his teenage years. Before he’d been sold to this land by Talia.

“Jaysun,” she spoke haltingly and he blinked at her saying his name.

“Jason,” he repeated for her, and slowly Rie said his name, carefully for a few minutes just testing it.

“Jason,” she finally said softly.

“Yes,” he said.

“Why are you here? In this land, if you have brothers?” she asked.

“My father had a lover, who wanted him to marry her, but she would not stand for me or my siblings.”

“How many siblings do you have?”

“I have an older brother, Richard, an older sister named Cassandra, I have a younger brother named Timothy, and brother named Damian. I do not know what my family thinks happened to me, but I have been here too long to be thought alive,” he admitted softly.

“Do you wish to go home?” she asked.

“I do not know if it would be home anymore.”

“Home is home, you should return,” she murmured.

“I think that this is home now,” he said softly.

“I would be pleased to see your home,” she said.

“It was green,” he started and she listened with rapt attention.

She reminded him of a raven when she spread her wings and flew to the trees at the sound of a horses. This strange land was becoming to be more like home.


	2. To Home!

It was a quiet night as she sat there staring out at the ocean, drying her hair from her bathing earlier. He was soundless as he joined her, she turned her head slightly when she heard him, he said nothing as he sat there.

“Do you wish to leave?” she asked after she had loosely woven her hair so it stayed down her back.

“I’m not sure wish is the right word to use little bird,” he replied softly.

Rie nodded in understanding, wincing at the soreness of her wings. Her fight against the oni had disjointed many of her feathers, they were throbbing as she tenderly lifted her wing over head to start fixing her feathers.

“That looks painful,” Nanashi said.

She said nothing about her discomfort, and suddenly there were calloused fingers moving hers’ aside. Her head snapped over to him at an act so intimate and his blue eyes stared back.

“Relax, I think I’ve watched you do this enough to not muck it up, relax,” he said.

“This is only for family and mates,” she omitted to the ginga. The man’s fingers faltered a moment as they looked at one another, and she held her breath.

“I’m whatever you want me to be,  _love_ ,” he said. The last word was foreign to her ears, but it sounded sweet as she let her wing fall back to it’s position, and Jason moved behind her working her feathers over carefully. His hands never touched the bare skin of her back.

“Jason,” she said his name carefully, for it sounded odd, but it was his and she would return it to him.

“Rie,” he responded.

“Would you like… like to return home?” she asked him. He had been her only companion for a while now, her father never entrusting her to the company of others outside her many brothers, and she wanted her companion to be happy. He was not. Her father had only entrusted her with the human after he had killed her brother in armed combat, which she found impressive because Daichi was abusive with his power over the compound. And her human, he was not happy here, she had heard him plead for his brothers and sister, had heard him weep for his father.

“I’m not sure there’s a home to go to,” he replied.

“I could take you,” she lied. She couldn’t, but she would be willing to fend off all her family to do that, the human was kind to her.

“I cannot ask that of you,” he chuckled.

“I offer, you deserve home,” she stated as he shifted to her other wing, she stretched the one he had finished fixing, moaning as it rose above her head and the feathers shifted pleasingly.

“And what about you, Rie-sama? Would you stay with me?”

“I think I might, slave, my father and brothers will never permit me to go anywhere or do anything, and it will be dull to be here without you. I am rather fond of you, Jason,” she said as she glanced over at him. He had a small smile on his lips as he worked her other wing over. His fingers were nimble, and sure, also gentle. Suddenly his voice and demeanor changed.

“ _Be mighty odd having a winged lassy in the Highlands of Scotland, but I’m sure we’d make a proper Scot of you yet_ ,” his said, his entire voice was thicker, surer, the rumble was enchanting, and she stared at him in awe.

“I did not understand any of that,” she stated.

“I didn’t know if I’d remember it,” he omitted.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said.

“I want you happy Jason, you make me happy,” she admitted. Feeling her face heat at that omission she was now pleased to be staring at the ocean and the moons rather than him.

“I’m glad to hear that,  _love_ , but you needn’t worry about me,” he chuckled.

“What do you keep calling me?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he chuckled.

“You are annoying, and insulting,” she decided.

“Yes Rie-sama, I apologize.”

“We will head east, tomorrow night, steal my father’s ship!” she decided.

“WHAT!?” he choked.

“We will go east, you will take me to your home,” she decided.

“Rie-sama!” he sputtered.

“It is decided, I am returning you home slave, you deserve your name and your people, and I will ensure you are returned,” she decided firmly.

“Do you even know how to sail?”

“I read it in a book, it cannot be that hard,” she shrugged, stretching her other wing now that he was done and sighed.

“Sailing is not as simple as you seem to think, Rie,” he stated as she stood and shook her silks of the dirt.

“It is, and we are going,” she decided.

“I’m going to die, at the bottom of the sea, with a bird-brain!” he groaned falling onto the ground.

“Get up, it is unbecoming of a ronin to lay on the ground.”

“I am a nameless slave.”

“You are ridiculous Jason.”

“I should’ve never told you my name.”

“Up, we will need provisions,” she said as she nudged his side.

“ _Leave me here to die, and perhaps the gods will take pity on me to send me to hell rather than with you on a boat_ ,” he muttered in his odd language.

“Up, I do not want to hear more whining, Nanashi, we are leaving tomorrow,” she stated as she nudged his side again.

“Rie-sama, I do not have a home to return to.”

“We’re going to it, tomorrow,” she stated.

“You do know this is not short trip, it took YEARS for me to get here via the slave trade,” he muttered.

“Well, you are my slave and I say we are going to your home land, up!” she shoved his propped up body then and he groaned as he got to his feet. “Whiny human.”

“I’m going to die, on the seas, with a bird brained tengu princess!” he hissed.

“Shush you, provisions, we sneak away tomorrow.”


End file.
